by Sonia Simone
Your copy might focus on benefits instead of features, have the right balance of emotion to logic, and maybe you’ve even snagged the reader’s attention with an arresting headline. But after your reader clicks through, does your copy hold her interest?
If you can’t keep the reader’s attention, nothing else matters. And the online world demands your best techniques to hold reader interest, because tempting distractions are always just a click away. All writers and marketers have their favorite tricks to glue reader attention to their content, so here are three of mine.
Click to continue →
by Brian Clark
One of the things you’ve heard from me over and over is to focus on subscriber acquisition as the main focus of blogging. Getting people to voluntarily pay attention to you over time is your goal, because it’s the cornerstone of permission marketing.
Whether you’re dealing with RSS or email subscriptions, not all subscribers are equal. People abandon RSS readers, ignore your content without unsubscribing, or simply don’t check in all that often.
Click to continue →
by Brian Clark
It’s July 4th in the Unites States, and you know what that means—hot dogs, fireworks, sunburns… and one or two people might drink a bit. But let’s not forget what else this day signifies.
That’s right… The Fourth of July is the day President Bill Pullman declared the world’s independence day from those pesky alien invaders from outer space, thereby rallying the troops and horrifying international film critics.
Apparently, a guy named John Quincy Adams said something similar with regard to Great Britain a bit further back. Sorry chaps, no hard feelings I hope.
But since the underlying meaning of this day is really about freedom, let’s focus on freelance. Here are seven articles that will help freelancers and those who hope to go freelance themselves.
Click to continue →
by Yuwanda Black
There’s been a debate ever since blogging became mainstream about how long blog posts should be. Many bloggers may read one or two discussions on it, and try to conform to that – never revisiting the issue again for as long as they blog. This can be a mistake.
For a definitive answer, the following are three things to consider when you’re trying to decide how long your blog posts should be.
Click to continue →
by Roberta Rosenberg
Emily’s OnceWed site offers a free listing service for (mostly) women to search/buy used wedding gowns or sell gowns to make back a little coin. Sounds like a smart deal for everyone in these tough economic times.
Since the service is currently complimentary, she’s looking for sufficient traffic to attract and generate ad revenue. She sees this site as a jumping off point to other wedding/bridal industry online media.
Click to continue →
by Dean Rieck
In the world of selling, you can use testimonials – among other techniques – to take advantage of the principle of “Social Proof.” According to this principle, all of us look to others to help us decide how to act. The more people doing it, the more correct it seems.
I illustrated this idea recently in part 1 of this series, Testimonials and Teenagers Whizzing in the Bushes: The Power of Social Proof.
Few people, however, make an effort to collect testimonials and keep them on file. So let’s look at a simple system I’ve developed to gather testimonials from your customers.
Click to continue →
